Mayor Rob Ford is down to his last strike in a titanic transit tussle waged against his own city council majority that opposes the mayor’s all-subway vision.

City council removed Ford’s allies from the transit commission Monday and installed a new team that promises to abide by council’s wishes. It was council’s second straight rebuff of the mayor and sets up the final political encounter when council votes March 21 on the future of transit along Sheppard Ave. East.

Forced into a corner by a mayor who won’t take no for an answer, Toronto City Council has seized control of the transit file in an unprecedented coup.

“Council has control over council,” said Councillor Joe Mihevc, when asked if Ford has lost his leadership grip.

Through sheer arrogance and stubbornness — plus an inability to govern and use power levers greater than every other Ontario mayor possesses — Ford has managed to become a poster child for how not to be a mayor.

It hasn’t been a political picnic at city hall — not with a LRT-subway debate waging in the media and in community meetings — but the outcome is as simple as 1, 2, 3.

Strike 1: Feb. 8.

Councillors took the most difficult step of rejecting the mayor’s all-subway vision. Instead, they reinstated much of the LRT vision in former mayor David Miller’s Transit City plan — a plan Ford unilaterally stopped.

Ford retaliated by using the transit commission to defy the will of council. First, Ford allies on the commission refused to allow chief general manager Gary Webster to report on the pros and cons of subways versus light rail. Then, they comprised the majority in a 5-4 vote to fire Webster for his pro-light rail views.

Strike 2: March 5.

Faced with an intransigent mayor and his defiance of council’s will, city council dissolved the current nine-member transit commission and installed a new slate of councillors who are prepared to follow council’s intent.

Commission membership was revamped. Instead of nine councillors, the new commission will have seven councillors and four civilians. The civilians will be added near the end of the year.

As a measure of revenge, city council rejected all five of the Ford allies who dismissed Webster (Vincent Crisanti, Frank DiGiorgio, Norm Kelly, Denzil Minnan-Wong, Cesar Palacio). Ford allies John Parker and Peter Milczyn, who voted to keep Webster, were returned to the commission — as were Maria Augimeri and chair Karen Stintz. Newcomers are Raymond Cho and Glen DeBaeremaeker from Scarborough and Josh Colle from midtown.

Strike 3: Coming March 21?

Council is to vote then on the future of the Sheppard line: subway or LRT? An expert panel is studying the options and word leaking out suggests they will opt to end the Sheppard subway at its current Don Mills Rd. terminus and use light-rail technology to extend the line all the way to Conlins Rd., near the Toronto Zoo.

With Ford losing every round of this transit fight to date, the best the mayor can hope for is a March 21 vote that extends the Sheppard subway two stops to Victoria Park, with the further extension left for a future council decision.

But even that compromise seems doubtful, as Ford has proven himself incapable of winning over the majority of council. In fact, the mayor has repeatedly moved to alienate council, insult its decisions, and ignore council votes. Besides, an expert panel looking at the options reportedly favours LRT.

As such, with each council vote, Ford is further hamstrung on one of the city’s most important and expensive files — left, instead, to babble on with his councillor brother, Doug, on his radio show as more and more councillors abandon his leadership.

The transit debacle — as stunning a rejection of a mayor’s leadership as Toronto has seen — is entirely Ford’s fault.

At council Monday, as the reality of the latest rejection sank in, his allies were left shaking their heads, bemoaning the hobbling of an administration within 15 months of its election.

Students of urban studies, political science, local democracy and municipal governance will be citing this issue and this era for as long as such university programs exist.

A mayor is given many tools to move city council towards approval of key issues. Instead of using facts, arguments, and strong policy positions to convince councillors, the Ford administration has insulted and bullied the elected councillors.

Unlike all the Toronto mayors that preceded him, this mayor has failed to find the middle ground that makes Toronto local politics work. Even as the vote came down Monday, his attack dog, Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti, was calling for a citizen revolt against council and the “left wingers who have taken over the TTC.”

The questions several councillors are now asking is, “Is this the new normal? Must we rescue every issue from the administration’s incompetence?”

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